Chapter 93 The Reconciliation

Chapter 93 The Reconciliation


CASSIAN'S POV

The smell of coffee pulled me out of sleep before the sunlight did.

For a second I did not know where I was. Then I felt the too-short couch under me, the blanket half twisted around my legs, and the ache in my neck from sleeping wrong after a fight that had gone nowhere useful and everywhere painful. The apartment was quiet except for the sound of something hitting a pan in the kitchen.

I sat up slowly and listened.

Another clink, a low curse. Then the unmistakable sound of eggs meeting heat.

Torin was making breakfast.

That alone was enough to make my chest tighten.

Last night had ended with me on the couch and him in the bedroom, both of us too angry to finish the conversation and too stubborn to let it go cleanly. I had fallen asleep with my back to the room and a knot in my jaw. Waking up to him cooking did not fix anything, but it did make the apartment feel less cold.

I stood and rubbed a hand over my face before walking toward the kitchen.

He had his back to me when I reached the doorway. 

The pan sizzled.

Torin looked over his shoulder and froze when he saw me.

For a beat we just stood there and looked at each other.

The air in the kitchen changed immediately. 

I took in the coffee pot, the eggs, the bread already toasted on a plate, and then his face. He had not shaved, his hair was a mess. He looked annoyingly good for a man who had spent the night on a couch and the morning trying to cook through a fight.

I crossed my arms. “You always make breakfast when you are avoiding me?”

His mouth twitched, but he did not smile. “You always wake up suspicious?”

“Only when you are standing in my kitchen.”

He turned back to the stove, then reached for the pan with a calm that was clearly forced. “I thought we should eat first.”

“That sounds like a trap.”

“It is eggs.”

“Same thing sometimes.”

That got the smallest breath of a laugh out of him, but it vanished as quickly as it came.

I watched him move the eggs onto two plates and set one aside for me before he finally turned to face me properly. He leaned back against the counter with the skillet still warm beside him, shoulders loose enough to pass for calm if I did not know him better.

I knew him better.

He looked at me for a long second, and I saw the apology trying to get out of his face before it reached his mouth.

That was Torin. He could be stubborn about everything except the part where he knew he had hurt me.

I stepped into the kitchen and stopped by the table instead of moving closer.

Neither of us spoke for a few seconds.

The silence was not as sharp as last night, but it still sat between us in a way that demanded attention. I looked at the coffee cups, the plates, the quiet apartment, and then back at him.

He broke first.

“I was wrong,” he said.

I went still.

He kept his eyes on mine. “Last night. I was wrong.”

I did not answer right away because hearing him say it so plainly always hit harder than whatever argument had come before it.

Torin pushed off the counter and came around the side of the kitchen island, stopping just short of me. 

“I should not have shut you out,” he said.

I held his gaze.

“I should not have made you sleep on the couch.” His jaw tightened once. “I was angry because I thought you were trying to make me choose between the team and my body, that was not fair.”

The words sat between us with more weight than the fight had.

I looked at him hard. “I was not trying to make you choose.”

“I know that now.”

“Now?”

He let out a breath through his nose and looked away for half a second before coming back to me. “I knew it last night too. I just did not want to hear it.”

That was the part that made this real.

I let my shoulders ease a little, though I did not let myself relax all the way. “You are scared.”

His face changed at once.

He stared at me for a second, then nodded once. “Yes.”

The honesty in that made the room feel different.

He dragged a hand over the back of his neck and looked down at the counter. “I am scared of losing my career.”

I had already known that was the truth under everything else. 

“I know,” I said quietly.

He looked back up at me. “You do?”

“Yes.” I took one step closer now, enough to narrow the space but not close it entirely. “You have been trying to act like the answer is simple because the alternative is worse.”

His throat moved once. 

“I am not stupid,” I said. “I know what it means if you stop now. I know what it means if surgery comes in before the season starts, I know exactly what you are trying to hold onto.”

He looked down at the plate in front of him, then back at me. “I do not want to miss it.”

The words were quiet enough that they almost disappeared.

I did not let them.

“The season?”

He gave a short nod. “The start, the beginning. The part where we are supposed to prove it was not luck.”

That one got me.

I stared at him for a second because I could hear the fear in it, but I could also hear the deeper part underneath; the idea of being left behind by the thing he had spent so long earning.

I reached for the edge of the table with one hand and kept my voice steady. “You are not luck.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“You are not something that disappears when you miss a month,” I said. “You are not the start of the season, you are not the schedule, you are not the one part of the team that only matters if you are on the ice.”

He held my gaze while I said it.

The kitchen had gone very still.

I stepped closer again. “You are you.”

His mouth parted slightly, then closed again.

I kept going because the words were true and because I needed him to hear them cleanly. “And I would rather have you healthy than have another Cup.”

That landed hard.

His face changed immediately. I saw it in the way his shoulders dropped just a little, in the way his eyes stayed on mine without blinking. The words had gotten through to him in a place the fight had not reached.

I said it again, quieter this time. “I mean that.”

He stared at me, and I could see the exact second the fight in him shifted from defensive to something softer and more painful. The kind of fear that does not want to be named because naming it makes it heavier.

He took a slow breath. “You would really pick that?”

I did not hesitate. “Yes.”

That made him look away for one second. When he looked back, his eyes were bright, though he had not let them tip all the way into tears.

“You are not supposed to say it like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like it is obvious.”

“It is obvious.”

He gave a tiny shake of his head, almost disbelieving. “You are impossible.”

“You married me for my charm.”

That pulled a real laugh out of him, brief and quiet and tired enough to make my chest tighten. The tension in the room shifted again. It was still there, but it was no longer sharp enough to cut. It had softened into something I knew better. Something we knew better.

He set the spatula down and turned fully towards me. “I was scared,” he said again, but this time it sounded less like an excuse and more like a confession.

I nodded once. “I know.”

“I did not want to say it out loud.”

“I know.”

“I did not want to hear you say you were right.”

I almost smiled. “I was right.”

He huffed out a breath, then shook his head slowly. “Yes, you were.”

That did it. The last of the tension in me finally eased a little. 

I crossed the rest of the space and stopped in front of him. 

“I am not asking you to give up,” I said.

He looked at me.

“I am asking you to let this be handled before it handles you.”

His eyes stayed on mine. “You really believe that?”

“Yes.”

He stood there for another second, then let out a slow breath and nodded once. “After the season starts,” he said. “We revisit it.”

My pulse stilled for half a beat.

“Promise?” I asked.

He answered without hesitation this time. “Promise.”

The word sat between us like a locked door finally opening.

I searched his face one more time, making sure he meant it, and saw the answer there. He was still scared, but he had let me in enough now to stop fighting the truth.

That was enough for the moment.

I reached out and touched his jaw, my thumb brushing once along the line of it. He went still under the touch, eyes fixed on mine, breath changing just enough that the whole kitchen felt charged again in that familiar way.

“Good,” I said quietly.

His mouth tilted by the smallest amount.

His eyes dropped to my mouth for half a second before returning to mine. That was enough to make my pulse move. “You look better in the morning when you are not mad at me.”

I snorted. “That was a very bad apology.”

“It was not the apology.”

I looked at him for a second and then laughed because he had the audacity to say that with a straight face after everything we had just been through. He smiled this time, realer than before, and it did something embarrassing to my chest.

I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together over the edge of the counter.

“Eat,” he said softly.

I glanced at the plates. “You made breakfast to bribe me.”

“Yes.”

“That is manipulative.”

“Did it work?”

I looked at him and tightened my grip once. “Unfortunately.”

His smile widened a little. 

We ate standing in the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder, the argument folding into something quieter and more useful. The surgeon’s words still sat in the back of my mind, but Torin had said the thing I needed to hear and meant it.

After the season starts.

We would revisit it.